Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,170

off on making them, but the carton sat on his counter. She wiped the counter and turned when he appeared from the other room, his hair almost black from being damp, and wearing only boxers.

She was sure her admiration was written all over her face.

“You made me breakfast?” He sounded impressed.

She forced her gaze from his rippling chest muscles to his face. “You said to make myself at home.” She pointed to the eggs. “I don’t know how you like your eggs.”

“Kylie, why are you here?” The look he gave her made it appear he’d been torturing himself trying to learn the answer.

Maybe she wasn’t the only one enduring a personal hell.

She put the washcloth on the counter and rubbed her hands down her jeans. It was time for reckoning, laying her cards on the table and seeing where it got her. No more waiting. No more praying things would work out to her advantage without her making an effort to make it happen.

“I’m afraid I left something here when I left a few months ago.”

“What was that?”

Her mouth was suddenly too dry when she lost herself in those sensual dark eyes of his. “My heart,” she whispered.

She couldn’t breathe when he simply studied her, not saying anything for a moment and not moving from where he stood damn near naked several feet away from her.

“So what will you do? Get it and leave again?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On what? Are you leaving the FBI?” He sounded incredulous, clearly understanding she could no more leave her line of work than he could his.

She shook her head, not taking her focus from him. “I came back to see you.” Her voice cracked. For whatever reasons, telling him she had a job interview would make it sound as though she was begging for his attention. If he wouldn’t come to her now, she’d taken all the steps she could to make something happen between them.

Perry walked to her and she didn’t dare move. When he was inches away, he took a slice of bacon from where it lay on a paper towel, draining. She watched him slide it into his mouth and then chew. His jaw muscles constricted. Roped muscle spreading from his shoulders flexed when he turned. But when he lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, she closed her eyes, afraid to breathe.

“There’s been a lot of loss in this town over the past few months,” he said, his deep baritone gentle, quiet, but still sounding distant and serious. “My nieces, who have already endured the loss of their father, went through the pain of losing friends in their classes.” He paused for a moment. “And you.”

“I know. I got an earful this morning,” she admitted, focusing on the spread of dark curls that traveled over his tanned chest. “You know I couldn’t tell them who I really was.”

“Yup.” He picked up another piece of bacon and then walked to his refrigerator.

Kylie focused on his back, deciding he’d lost a few pounds, too, over the past few months. Her attention shot to the red mark that stretched over his shoulder blade, bright and puffy and shaped like a bolt of lightning. She cleared the distance between them, touching the puffy skin and acknowledging the fresh wound.

“You’re hurt.”

Perry spun around, his eyes on fire when he grabbed her wrist, pinching her skin as he held it firmly against his heart. “I helped pull a couple out of a car that capsized in the river earlier tonight when we couldn’t reach a diver,” he explained. “The pain from it will go away before long. I’m not worried about it. What I am worried about are the girls, me, what is mine,” he said, his fierceness unleashed on her.

Kylie looked up at him, her lips parted and her breath coming hard. Emotions he’d apparently managed to keep at bay, possibly as long as she’d been gone, suddenly tumbled at her like an avalanche. And he held on to her, refusing to let go and staring down at her with a hard stare that bordered on violent.

“It hurt when you walked out of my life, hurt really fucking bad. And I knew you were leaving. But then I had to deal with the girls, who were not only recovering from the hysteria and trauma involved with a madman stalking one of them, and with girls they knew having been brutally murdered, but also with a sense of betrayal they felt from